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Abstract:

Understanding vulnerability has become one of the most important themes of research into climate change. In many developing countries, where the ability to influence global greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the risks of climate change is small, vulnerability is the main risk factor that can be controlled at national and local levels. The IPCC states that there is a clear need for more research at the regional and local level that could serve to understand vulnerability in terms of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to climate change so that policies can be formulated to reduce the impacts of a changing climate. One approach to the understanding and study of vulnerability to environmental change is to map and analyze it with the aid of geographic information systems (GI8), remote sensing and spatial statistical techniques. These techniques can be used to understand the various components of vulnerability and the manner in which they vary across space and time. This study undertakes a spatial assessment of vulnerability in the Department of Puno, located in the southern Andes of Peru. Puno has a long history of dealing with different types of meteorological event impacts including drought, frosts and floods, as well as decadal climate variability associated with El Nifio. Puno also faces new risks such as the disappearance of Andean snowpack and glaciers. It is a clear example of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) characterization of Latin America in which they conclude that adaptive capacity of human systems is low (especially to extreme events), vulnerability is high and meteorological event impacts are likely to become more frequent as a result of climate change. The main research questions include exploring how vulnerability to climate change is understood, analyzing how geospatial statistics are used to examine vulnerability and understanding what the drivers of vulnerability in the study area are.